Damnyan's Corner: Introduction

Coaching job is very interesting, but also very hard thing to do. I know that from my personal experience. I started coaching in 2006. And since then I have been almost everywhere, been up and down. I have been involved in sports for some time now, about 20 years, so I think I know what I am talking about.

My main focus in future articles will be on coaching junior and youth football. At the beginning I would not talk much about X`s and O`s, drills or anything regarding pure football. The theme will be about interacting with young football players. I would try to present my point of view and experience that I had during this 20 plus years in sports.

First things first, at the beginning of my coaching career, I have decided to work with young players. At that time in Serbia we didn`t have junior programs. I started one. From my experience from handball (sport that I have been involved with for a long time, before football) I know importance of junior and/or youth programs for the sport and for the club and organization as a whole. As long as You have junior/youth program, Your organization (club) has future! And that is something like an unwritten law. If You have that youth movement than Your team can not vanish.

Few years back I have given one lecture about my ideas about junior program that I had run as head coach. I will try to present to You the same and in the upcoming articles I will focus on single segment from that lecture in order to thoroughly explain philosophy that I have used troughout the years.

Why have I decided to work with young players? Young players and generally kids are eager to learn something new every day, not just sport related but life related too. In working with kids, I have worked with group of kids between 16 and 20 years old, I was able to influence them on more than one level in their lives.

As a coach of that age group You have responsibility for them not just as a coach but as a teacher even parent. In above mentioned lecture I have cited that junior program coach has to be a multifunctional person.

I think that is enough for the first article. In the next one will focus on roles good junior/youth coach has to play.

You can check out my blog Serbian language www.americkifudbalnasrpskinacin.blogspot.com. I have been both busy and lazy so I haven`t updated it for some time and that is going to change in near future. I hope that You will like it and feel free to comment on it and send me some feedback about themes You want to see more on of.